


Ringmaster

by somnivagrantTraviatus



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Divine and Brumm are also there but not enough to warrant a character tag really, Gen, Ritual headcanons, disabled Grimm, not either of the Grimms we meet but Grimms nonetheless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21702382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somnivagrantTraviatus/pseuds/somnivagrantTraviatus
Summary: A new Grimm adopts and adapts his legacy.
Relationships: Grimm & Grimmchild (Hollow Knight)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 45





	Ringmaster

**Author's Note:**

> A conversation with JaxxCapta got me thinking about disabled Grimms. It's hard enough dealing with a body that doesn't work as an individual, but when you're the latest in a line of clones who never had this problem, how much worse must it feel to be different? On the other hand, what do you do when your clone child is looking to you for answers to a problem you never had to solve, despite your lifetimes of immortality?

Growing legs _hurt._

It always did, but he was too young to know that yet, and wouldn't have believed himself anyway. Pain had a way of doing that to you, he would learn. No matter how many times you flew through fire, the body always screamed like it was the first.

It wasn't fire. Small mercies. But they _burned_ like it, the legs. His carapace split, tail becoming sturdy limbs, and he whined and panted through it, only dimly aware of his father’s soothing crackles and the damp cloth on his forehead.

This is what he remembers: lucidity like oxygen. Worry, banked in his father's eyes. Fingers, trembling, tracing misshapen contours in his still-soft shell. A whisper: “Why’s it like that?” An answer: “I don't know.”

“But you know everything,” he said.

A laugh, harsh with smoke. “Not this.” His father stood, tucking the blankets close around his leg. “I'll ask the Heart. We'll see what we can do.”

The tentcloth fell shut around the entrance, the rustle of fabric concealing the hitch in his breath. In the dark, the accordion played a solemn tune.

He swallowed. “Brumm?”

“Mrmm?”

“Will I be able to walk?”

An unhappy flourish, trailed off into silence. “I don't know.”

\---

It should have been a happy occasion, and they were still trying to make it so, but the forced cheer grated almost as much as the tremor in his leg. He grit his teeth around another stumble, hoping it looked enough like a smile.

“You’re doing great,” his father insisted, hands tight where they gripped around his own. “Let’s try again, hm?”

The words stung. “You don’t have to pretend for me, you know,” he said. Kept the tone light, no matter how much he wanted to spit them back. 

“Whatever do you mean, dear?” Divine, nearly simpering. He rolled his eyes.

“These aren’t my first steps. I’m not walking, am I?” He cut his father off before the inevitable interjection. “Not on my own, anyway. So there’s no point making a big deal of it.”

“Oh, child, no Grimm walks on his own the first time.” A crooked grin under pitying eyes. “I’m here for a reason, am I not? It’s my job to support you as you find your feet, as my fathers did for me.”

He turned away, hissing. “Sorry I’m not you, then.”

Divine gasped, but his father only sighed; a sound weighted with lifetimes. His fingers followed the lightning-strike ridges in the carapace over his heart. “No,” he said. “You are, always, your own self. But we are tongues from the same flame, you and I. We are the same where it counts.”

A hand came up to cover his own chest, but he shook his head. His eyes stung. “Bet none of the others had to deal with _this._ ”

“Maybe we could find some method of support?” Divine ventured. “I’m sure props has something we could use, or costumes.”

“A _cane?_ ” he spat. The word sizzled on the tent floor, until his father put it out with a well-placed stomp and a look. He ground his teeth and reined in his temper. “I’m not a _grandpa._ I’ll do this myself.”

A step. Another. His leg quavered like the townsfolk outside of their tents, he realized, shaking now with grim purpose. But he was not afraid. He would be the King of Nightmares, just as he would one day stride and spin across the circus stage.

A third step, and it collapsed beneath him, sending him stumbling into Divine’s side. She helped him to his feet, lips pursed under her half-mask. “Are you sure? It might be a big help.”

He pulled away, taking a wobbly step back. Trying to ignore the weight he leant on her, before pushing himself on. “I’m sure.”

\---

See, the performance was all the same once you saw how it was done. The acts changed from show to show, a shifting program he knew by heart but always, there was the ringmaster. Always a Grimm in the center of it all. Whirling and leaping, the unquestioned lead in their dance of shadows. The stage was his realm, and on it, he did not, could not, falter.

How could one dance without standing?

\---

He completed the Ritual without escort, in the end. The Troupe had wanted to enlist one, but he protested – “I’m not a child anymore! Isn’t that the point of this?” – and they had let him go.

The strain on his magic was intense, teleporting around the ruins of the kingdom, but with each flame he consumed he felt his power grow – as if every beat of his heart brought him closer to that dread realm he would rule. And it beat strong, his heart. The frequent hops he made, Divine’s side to Brumm’s shoulders to father’s arms, had exercised his magic. They came in useful now.

And his control, built through a life of teleporting precision, did not waver. Even as his father burned in his flame.

“I’m sorry, Father.”

“I know. I know.”

He consumed the final flame, and became Grimm.

Every Grimm. The old, the young; the fathers, sons and in-betweens. And he saw the way the young Grimms held themselves, commanding respect from those uninclined to give it, and the ways the old Grimms spoke and moved, weaving illusions to conceal vulnerability.

 _I knew he’d come around eventually,_ one whispered. He could feel the ghost of his shell: bent and hunched, with knees that ached, fingers gnarled around a cane that wasn’t there. _Gonna have to make up for lost time now, eh, sonny? Bet you wish you’d listened to your elders now._

It did seem silly, now, to reject a cane as for the elderly. He had been elderly, and beyond it, and dead, and lived again. Why should a tool say anything about his age when he didn’t know if he was old or young himself?

 _You’re as old as you want to be,_ a middle-aged Grimm kindly told him. _Bah! Age is age,_ an older one retorted. _Does your back hurt when you wake up in the morning? Congratulations! You’re old._

Did his back hurt in the morning?

 _You’re older than me, so you’re, like, super old,_ a young Grimm informed him. _You can try to act the age you were, but stuff keeps slipping through the cracks._

Forever?

 _Forever,_ the young one agreed. _It’s okay. That’s what Brumm and Divine and the Troupe are for. You’ll figure it out._

He would. He had, over and over again. This time would be no different.

His father’s ghost wrapped him in a hug. _You’ll get there. I know you will._

\---

“C’mon, Johann, hurry up! We’re gonna miss the show!”

“Maybe you shoulda thought of that before getting us lost in the woods,” he retorted.

“Hey, not my fault! You said this was a shortcut!” Greta crossed her arms, waiting under the autumn leaves.

Her brother nudged her as he caught up. “I didn’t, actually. I just said Egen said it was.”

“Close enough!”

An odd sound interrupted their squabbling, making them turn – a three-fold rustle, punctuated now and then with a heavy crunch. The two gripped each other as it drew closer, til a pale face emerged from between the twisted branches.

“Hello, children,” he said, in a voice rough with smoke. “Lost, are we?”

“He started it,” Greta said, even as Johann pointed an accusing finger at her.

The man gave them a raspy chuckle. “Now, now. I’m sure you have bigger things to worry about than that. You said you were going to a show?”

“We’re going to the circus,” Greta boasted.

“Or we were,” Johann corrected, “til Greta got us lost.”

“Til _you_ got us lost, you mean! We aren’t gonna make it!”

“Children!" the man interrupted. "Peace." He folded his arms over his cane, a gorgeous thing carved of dark wood. “What if I said I could ensure you a safe journey back to town?”

“Really?!”

Johann pushed up his glasses. “Right, cause that isn’t suspicious at all. A strange man shows up out of nowhere and says he’ll help two lost kids out of the forest?”

He laughed. “Oh, I have no ill intention toward either of you. Believe me or not, it’s your decision, but I doubt you’ll find another way out before nightfall.”

So saying, he began to walk again.

The two looked at each other. “Do you believe him?” Johann asked.

Greta groaned. “It doesn’t matter; he’s right. C’mon, we gotta follow him!”

They took off, footsteps joining his three-part rhythm.

Sure enough, his path lead them to thinning trees.

Greta ran ahead. “Look! It’s town!”

“Did you doubt me?” The stranger laughed, spreading his free hand wide. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. We’re here, after all.”

“Guess so,” Johann said. “Thanks.”

“Oh, no need to thank me. I was merely acting the concerned citizen.” He nodded to each of them. “Farewell, Johann, Greta. Enjoy the show.”

For a moment, he was silhouetted in the setting sun. Then he was gone.

The children stared.

“That was weird,” said Greta.

Johann pushed up his glasses. “Did we ever tell him our names?”

She swallowed. “No, we didn’t.”

Tension crept along the inside of their shells and made a home in their bellies, only deepening when they saw the circus tents. The feeling grew and ripened as they took their seats, til it thrummed crimson in their veins.

Finally, the lights dimmed. The lumaflies traded their lanterns to dancing flames and flew into large lamps ‘round the room’s edge, which each spun and whirled before drawing to a single point on stage.

Drums rolled. Fog roiled. And in a cloud of smoke, the ringmaster appeared.

Greta gasped. “Is that him?”

Her brother stared. “Can’t be.”

The man from the woods twirled, then fell into a deep bow. “Greetings, one and all, and welcome to the latest performance of the Grimm Troupe! Here, we have gathered thrills and frights as you have never seen, and they will dance for you tonight under our tents.” 

Ghastly figures in pale masks rose from the stage and wriggled as he spoke. The troupe master gripped one by the arms and led it in a pas de deux, his cane left forgotten center stage. The crowd gasped. “Let us embrace your fears,” he continued, “as we parade with the monsters in your closet. After all –” He stopped, the spotlights flaring. When the light cleared, the figures were gone and he was center stage again. “It will all be gone come morning!”

The audience clapped and cheered. He acknowledged them with a nod, then looked up, meeting Greta and Johann’s wondering eyes. The ringmaster smiled, reclaiming his cane. “We do hope you’ll enjoy the show.”


End file.
